What can you do?

[oremike]

On welding, I took a no credit weekend course at Lane Community college to learn some basic skills. That might be something to look into.

 

[oremike]

On welding, I took a no credit weekend course at Lane Community college to learn some basic skills. That might be something to look into.

Adding the class taught me more that make metal hot and stick together. I learned basic layout, cut off wheel, grinder and wire wheel use among other things.

 

[IndyPrepper]

Adding the class taught me more that make metal hot and stick together. I learned basic layout, cut off wheel, grinder and wire wheel use among other things.

Good advice. I may just do that. I tend to just buy something and tear into it, figuring things out as i go. But welding..hrmm..yeah I can see doing some damage to myself or the metal if I try to experiment my way through it.

 

[Bobbygun]

Adding the class taught me more that make metal hot and stick together. I learned basic layout, cut off wheel, grinder and wire wheel use among other things.

I learned how to weld from J-B. Tells you how right on the back of the package and I've not burned myself even once.

 

[kmk1012]

I've been fortunate to grow up with a father who fabricates just about everything metal, sheet metal, stainless, structural steel, and everything in between. He is currently teaching my 13 year old son the ropes while my son makes a couple bucks. My Dad is simply the best when it comes to fit and finish, has never advertised a day in his life, and literally a person needs to know someone to get in touch with him. He is very cantankerous but he does not get paid for his personality. When I was young and had a license and worked for him, I made good money, kinda wish I'd had stayed with him as I'd be running it now.

 

[Mono1]

Something like Clint Smith's Thunder ranch..but more generalized not gun centered.

That ain't gonna Fly Here. Good Luck Tho'

 

[American123]

Can you: Grow a garden

Wire up electronics
cut and stack firewood
clean a chimney
solve plumbing problems
set a broken bone
throw sutures
make water pure
bump start a car with a dead battery
trap a rabbit or a bird or a predator
catch a fish
sight in a rifle
calm an angry person
fix a flat tire
fix a leaking roof
tow a vehicle
dig a grave
know how to make alcohol for fuel
write a congress member and give them direction
feed your family and friends for a month or so

Figure it out

Soon

I got a chuckle out of reading this. In the category of "calm an angry person," does that person have to still be alive after they've been calmed?

 

[Mono1]

I learned how to weld from J-B. Tells you how right on the back of the package and I've not burned myself even once.

View attachment 1757912

Good Info. I Guess the Ultimate Backup would be 3 to 4 Rolls of Duck Tape.

 

[OldBroad44]

I got a chuckle out of reading this. In the category of "calm an angry person," does that person have to still be alive after they've been calmed?

Yes. Because if your first approach to every anger-provoking person is to kill them, the community is likely to decide something needs to be done about you. Hunter-gatherer communities tend to have more homicides than modern civilization. And the guy who got killed was typically the big guy who thought he could act out his erroneous concept of an "alpha male" and bully, kill or intimidate others. Or take the other guys possessions. Or steal or rape his wife or daughter. Actually their concept of an "alpha male" chimp does exist in nature-- but only briefly. His reign is short and his end is brutal. He is usually seized by four subordinate males and stretched out and all the males participate in killing him, usually starting with biting his genitals off and gouging his eyes out. Then he is torn to pieces. Even a huge male can be killed by five much smaller males. Four grab one limb each. Others then start removing parts beginning with genitals. The true alpha male chimp reigns much longer, is an expert politician, is great at forming coalitions, has lots of friends, both male and female, etc. He tends to break up fights of subordinates, protecting the less powerful. When he is not strong enough to be alpha any more he is allowed to just sorta retire, step back into a less dominant role, but still respected, beloved. (Chimpanzee Politics, by noted primatologist Frans de Waal.)

You can make a good argument that humans "self-domesticated" themselves by killing off and thus selecting against their more aggressive members. We bear all the traits we have produced in the animals we domesticated. We have somewhat more neotenous (juvenile) facial characteristics, have less uncontrollable rage, are more playful into adulthood, have smaller canines, are more tolerant of others of the same pack or tribe, are a little smaller, etc. Exactly the same features that characterize all our domesticated animals.

So yes, being willing and able to calm an angry person is an essential SHTF survival skill.

 

[American123]

Yes. Because if your first approach to every anger-provoking person is to kill them, the community is likely to decide something needs to be done about you. Hunter-gatherer communities tend to have more homicides than modern civilization. And the guy who got killed was typically the big guy who thought he could act out his erroneous concept of an "alpha male" and bully, kill or intimidate others. Or take the other guys possessions. Or steal or rape his wife or daughter. Actually their concept of an "alpha male" chimp does exist in nature-- but only briefly. His reign is short and his end is brutal. He is usually seized by four subordinate males and stretched out and all the males participate in killing him, usually starting with biting his genitals off and gouging his eyes out. Then he is torn to pieces. Even a huge male can be killed by five much smaller males. Four grab one limb each. Others then start removing parts beginning with genitals. The true alpha male chimp reigns much longer, is an expert politician, is great at forming coalitions, has lots of friends, both male and female, etc. He tends to break up fights of subordinates, protecting the less powerful. When he is not strong enough to be alpha any more he is allowed to just sorta retire, step back into a less dominant role, but still respected, beloved. (Chimpanzee Politics, by noted primatologist Frans de Waal.)

You can make a good argument that humans "self-domesticated" themselves by killing off and thus selecting against their more aggressive members. We bear all the traits we have produced in the animals we domesticated. We have somewhat more neotenous (juvenile) facial characteristics, have less uncontrollable rage, are more playful into adulthood, have smaller canines, are more tolerant of others of the same pack or tribe, are a little smaller, etc. Exactly the same features that characterize all our domesticated animals.

So yes, being willing and able to calm an angry person is an essential SHTF survival skill.

Interesting. It seems you entirely missed the premise.

The OP's list included: "Can you calm an angry person?"

Not to be confused with, "can you respond to situations without being angry or violent?"

The chimpanzee analogy was interesting, but seems to focus on the latter and not the former which was what my statement referenced. Chimpanzee's also don't have guns that allow a single person, irrelevant of their physical stature, to dominate with violence many other people, simultaneously, which they otherwise could not.

Being able to go through life without being angry, or violent, is important, but someone being upset can happen for any number of reasons, often irrational, illogical, or self-serving ones, and the notion of having to "calm them" is just comical. Wasting time/effort doing that is futile if the cause of their anger is irrational.

Theoretical SHTF and fear mongering threads have happened for decades, and I'm sure conversations of this nature have happened forever, but society also hasn't always been this structured and reliable so the "normal" we experience hasn't been the same for most of humans throughout history. Having to survive the challenges of each day was definitely a more relevant experience of generations of humans past.

In this theoretical SHTF situation, if someone is angry, ok, so… why? And do I really care? Is this a stranger who is upset they are improperly prepared for the reality they are in and who means less to me than my breakfast. Or is this a family member who I am living with and are upset that we aren't going to grocery store because it ran out of food. These details matter.

If we are referring to a truly societally collapsing situation, then yes, expect to see many people not survive that over the most petty disagreements. If this is just a "big snowstorm and the city power is out for 3 days and people are cold because their heat won't turn on and they can't get around" then no, likely that would not result in mass violence, but would be a lot of unhappy/angry people and would still represent a situation that required some effort to survive.

My post was more satire than anything, directed at one of the components of this "sky is falling" post. I wouldn't take it too seriously.

 

[Bobbygun]

My post was more satire than anything, directed at one of the components of this "sky is falling" post. I wouldn't take it too seriously.

That's certainly how I took it.

Following this topic a little further down the rabbit hole though, makes me wonder a bit. I've always considered myself pretty good at calming angry people. I've broken up a few fights and diffused some potentially ugly situations over the years. I've also dealt with friends/family members dealing with manic depression. Having said that, it almost seems like under a true SHTF situation, that skill might actually be less valuable. If society has truly broken down completely, one might be less inclined to put oneself out there. But then, I suppose you can't kill everyone. Or can you?

 

[American123]

That's certainly how I took it.

Following this topic a little further down the rabbit hole though, makes me wonder a bit. I've always considered myself pretty good at calming angry people. I've broken up a few fights and diffused some potentially ugly situations over the years. I've also dealt with friends/family members dealing with manic depression. Having said that, it almost seems like under a true SHTF situation, that skill might actually be less valuable. If society has truly broken down completely, one might be less inclined to put oneself out there. But then, I suppose you can't kill everyone. Or can you?

To have a more valuable discussion on this topic, the premise of why someone is angry in the first place must be determined before it's even worth considering is this someone that can be calm down, or is useful to be calmed down or if it should be just ignored and gone the other way, or, if violence is truly the answer.

Is this an acquaintance a friend, a family member a total stranger all these factors must be considered, and really the premise paints them all with a broad brush so it's impossible to have a good discussion on the matter. While I am not seriously advocating for going around committing violence against other people as a general method of existence, or problem-solving, if we are truly referring to a situation where society, if only for a temporary time, has essentially collapsed, even if only in a small geographic area, my interest to involve myself with calming other people who aren't part of my circle will be nonexistent compared to the other things I will be focused on doing it. One of those things I will be focused on doing is my circle not having any contact with outside my circle, as much as practically possible, because contact outside the circle provides opportunity for conflict. Which I would hope to avoid.

Sometimes (as I have found throughout my own life) violence is the answer though, because sometimes people are unwilling to respect words. Violence can also produce a calming/diffusing effect when done effectively.

 

[Knobgoblin]

That's certainly how I took it.

Following this topic a little further down the rabbit hole though, makes me wonder a bit. I've always considered myself pretty good at calming angry people. I've broken up a few fights and diffused some potentially ugly situations over the years. I've also dealt with friends/family members dealing with manic depression. Having said that, it almost seems like under a true SHTF situation, that skill might actually be less valuable. If society has truly broken down completely, one might be less inclined to put oneself out there. But then, I suppose you can't kill everyone. Or can you?

There's a few nuanced ways to look at it.
What if the angry person who needs calming is your family member? What if the immediate reason for calming them involved a situation where they could get themselves ( or the whole home team) hurt or killed? This can happen any day, even without adding fantasy based end of the world crap in the mix.

 

[gmerkt]

Okay, today I discovered that I can start a lawnmower with a broken starter rope.

Lawn mowing in November? More like vacuuming up leaf litter. Because in the best of times, what I have is only nominally a "lawn" and it's mostly moss, dandelions, wild violets and whatever else wants to grow there on its own. I had a bare area that resulted from tree clearing earlier this year. I threw some bird seed out there to see what would happen. I got to see what millet plants look like. The rabbits liked them.

Anyway, I got the old Honda lawnmower out of the shed. I bought it at a garage sale years ago for $5. It was pretty beaten-down when I got it, but it still runs and works mostly as it should. But today, I yanked on the starter rope and it decided that it was time to part.

My first move was to take the starter assembly off the top of the engine. I found that there was a flange on the flywheel with two opposing notches on it to catch the pawls on the starter sprocket. Then I remembered that years ago, my neighbors had an old two cycle lawnmower that had been built without an automatically retracting starter rope. You wound it around the sprocket by hand. So I took my broken off rope, tied a knot in the end, wound it around the now exposed sprocket in the ratty Honda, gave it a yank and it started right away. I may just leave it that way; I don't know how much longer the rest of it will last.

 

[OldBroad44]

Interesting. It seems you entirely missed the premise.

The OP's list included: "Can you calm an angry person?"

Not to be confused with, "can you respond to situations without being angry or violent?"

No. I did not miss the premise. And I did not confuse the question with some other only vaguely related question.

You responded to the question of whether you could calm an angry person by saying it depended upon whether the "calmed" person had to be alive. Shorter answer: Yes. When you interact with someone and cause their death we call it murder, manslaughter, or homocide (justified or not.) Or killing. We do not call it "calming."

 

[American123]

No. I did not miss the premise. And I did not confuse the question with some other only vaguely related question.

You responded to the question of whether you could calm an angry person by saying it depended upon whether the "calmed" person had to be alive. Shorter answer: Yes. When you interact with someone and cause their death we call it murder, manslaughter, or homocide (justified or not.) Or killing. We do not call it "calming."

Why so serious?

Dead people can appear pretty calm.

 

[OldBroad44]

Why so serious?

Dead people can appear pretty calm.

Come to think of it, they can. And the deader they are the calmer they appear. When I was a little kid I found an ammonite, a fossil of a shell-bearing critter that lived a couple hundred thousand years ago. It certainly did look calm.

 

[kmk1012]

I saw a video of a dead person killing a motorcycle rider. That dead person didn't look too calm when they fell out of the hearse on the freeway

 

[Bobbygun]

Dead people can appear pretty calm.

This reminds me of a spoof in Mad Magazine about 50 years ago. It was a comic bit based on The Rifleman. Lucas McCain was stacking the bodies all over with his lever action Winchester. Someone remarked: "Lucas, I heard you were a peace-loving man." Lucas' response: "There's nothing more peaceful than a dead man." (The things a guy can remember after 50 years, when I can never remember someone's name five minutes after they introduce themselves.)

 

[Bobbygun]

There's a few nuanced ways to look at it.

C'mon maaaaaaaaaan! You've read my posts. Nuance isn't my strong suit.